Superintendents of the Salt Lake City, Box Elder and Uintah school districts said at an Education Interim Committee meeting Thursday that school districts are struggling to create plans to pay educators for performance. Adding to their stress, districts must come up with plans by the end of June to get a piece of the $20 million lawmakers approved in March.

Some states have taken years to decide how to pay teachers based on their performance. Now, Utah teachers' pay is based mostly on years of experience and their educations.

Uintah Superintendent Charles Nelson said he supports the idea of performance pay, but his district won't likely apply for the money.

"My main concern with this process is it's too quick," Nelson said. "To have two months to come up with a plausible plan that's something . . . meaningful; I didn't think it could be done."

Box Elder Superintendent Martell Menlove and Salt Lake City Superintendent McKell Withers said their districts plan to apply for the money. Menlove said he knows of another 16 districts that also plan to apply. But Menlove and Withers are concerned about several things, including that school districts might not be able to give state officials the type of report they seek by summer of 2009.

Utah State Board of Education rules say school districts must submit reports about their programs by July 1, 2009, and are encouraged to base the performance pay partly on measures of student academic progress in 2008-2009. But school districts often don't know standardized test results until August of each year.

Menlove also said districts are having trouble trying to craft plans that reflect lawmakers' intent when the rules are so broad. For example, should they reward all employees or just teachers, and should everyone get the same amount of money or different amounts?

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who sponsored the legislation, and other lawmakers told the superintendents they don't expect perfection, especially because they gave school districts so much leeway in designing plans.

"This was a loosey goosey appropriation," said Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, meaning lawmakers purposefully didn't tell districts exactly what to do. "It's $20 million to use as you see fit."

Several lawmakers said they see the $20 million as a one-year experiment on performance pay in Utah, and they hope to use the results to help them create a long-term plan.

"In an experiment like this, it's as important to know the misses as well as the hits," Urquhart said.

"I just hope some of the misses are not detrimental to the process," Menlove replied. Menlove said he worries about lawmakers basing a long-term performance pay plan on the results of this one-year experiment because of the uncertainty surrounding it.

Urquhart did, however, point out to legislators that they have to start discussing a timeline soon. Stephenson said the committee's goal is to come up with legislation proposing a long-term performance pay system by the next legislative session, which starts in January. But by January, school districts will be only "halfway through your experiment," Urquhart said.

Rep. Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville, asked legislative staff if it might be possible to put off spending the money to give districts more time. Dee Larsen, with the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, said it would be possible to hold on to the money.

Holdaway said that sort of decision likely would have to go through the Executive Appropriations Committee.